


all his fellows

by raven_aorla



Series: in all his quality [5]
Category: The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M, Q is ariel, inspired by that music vid whishaw was in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:22:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2125110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond has passed on now, in the way of mortals, but the being known to some as Q and to others as Ariel still has work to do. The Supernatural Service has learned that Ariel is less unique than previously thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all his fellows

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Ben Whishaw and Ollie Alexander in the music video "Real" by Years & Years, and that the actors had also played Peter Llewyn-Davies and the famous character based on him, Peter Pan, in the play "Peter and Alice". Judi Dench played the elderly Alice Liddell Hargreaves, inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, in the same production:  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3T2RnTBp_4

The sorcerer goes by the name Pan. He has gone by others, but this era is so ephemeral, so flimsy and slick, that something short serves him best. No one suspects the truth of it. He owns a chic little nightclub in a fashionable part of London, a mundane moneymaker except for the thirty-first night of a month, nights that are invitation-only. Then it turns into his personal court.

 

_ I want a promotion. _

_ I want her love. _

_ I want the cancer to go away. _

_ I want to become famous. _

_ I want him found and tried and stabbed by a cellmate. _

_ I want to be beautiful. _

_ I want them to forgive me. _

 

Pan can do that for you. For a price. When he draws your card you'll dance for him, let his music and spirit in, let him rifle through your soul and poke the tender cobwebs even you have forgotten lie in your memories. He'll pocket what he likes. It may seem only a few moments on the outside, but he'll know you well by then. Depending on the hunger behind his impish face and boyish smile, he usually won't take more of your life than you can survive losing - but it takes a lot of siphoning to keep Pan young, and if you die shortly after receiving your wish his bargain is still kept.

 

Oh this boy is beautiful, tucking his heart away to hide the bruising. _ I want to taste and touch.  _ Details are not needed to make the deal. Feeding on the life-force of others amasses enough power to answer such little hopes as these. Pan will learn enough, soon enough.

 

The boy looks nervous as he begins. Most of them are. But as the music thrums through him he loses his rigidity, his feet no longer fixed to earth, the dance almost a flight...

 

And then Pan realizes he's been tricked.

 

"Glutted yourself a bit, did you?" the not-a-boy asks with damnable amusement when he finds Pan after, the fleshy rabble having filtered out and Pan's servants occupied cleaning the place. Pan is curled inwards in a back room, more than five hundred years of foreign thought and memory, wonder and longing. 

"What...are...you?" he grits out.

A hand passes through the table holding a deck of cards and a glass of wine, insubstantial. But when it touches Pan, lays flat and warning on his aching chest, it is solid enough. "Not much different than yourself, spirit of earth. What I gave you should keep you alive and able to do your little tricks for at least twenty years without killing anyone. Don't make me your enemy. There aren't many of us, and I would rather be friends."

Pan tries to glare, but unfortunately there's wisdom in those words. Immortals have none to cling to but each other. "I'll leave the mortals what they need. And I might be persuaded to forgive you. In time. Is this what they call indigestion?"

The shrug seems very human indeed, but his voice is like a breeze on a still summer's day. "I'm looking forward to finding out, thanks to our bargain. My name is Ariel. I'll be checking in."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally conceived as a multichapter, but out of steam for now. Sorry about that.  
> Pan would have been Earth, Mephistopheles Fire, and Calypso Water, Ariel being Air.


End file.
